


the words will fall like teeth

by ShowMeAHero



Series: as the ghost begins to bleed [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Deadlights (IT), Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Families of Choice, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Heart Attacks, Hospitals, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Jewish Richie Tozier, M/M, Necromancy, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Resurrection, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 00:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20751275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: He digs his fingers into Richie’s collarbones and squeezes, and Richie gasps from the press of his nails. “Look at me, Richie, hey, breathe with me, okay, chill out!”Richie wheezes, trying to say something. Eddie leans in closer, says, “What? Richie, what, what’s wrong?”Richie gasps. “You,” he says, then wheezes again.“Youfucking chill out,” he finally manages, breathless. Eddie thumps him in the side of the head.





	the words will fall like teeth

**Author's Note:**

> OOF looks like i'm writing a second part. oh well!
> 
> Title taken from ["Lipstick Covered Magnet"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPRmnIzMr94) by The Front Bottoms.

Eddie wakes up to the sound of Richie gasping for air, leaning over the side of the bed with his head between his knees, his feet planted on the ground. His hands are tangled tightly in the hair at the back of his head as he wheezes, shallow breath hitching on a sob. Eddie can’t process it for a moment, baffled and confused as to why Richie would be making strange sounds in the middle of the night. Then, he actually understands that it’s _ bad _that Richie is making these noises, and he scrambles up, pulling Richie’s shoulders up.

“Get up, get up, Richie,” Eddie tells him, trying to pull him to his feet. Richie’s too tall and he’s almost all dead weight, still unable to catch his breath, so Eddie gives up on trying to pull him up and starts trying to pull him down instead.

“Sit up,” Eddie orders him, and Richie shoves his hands away. Eddie moves back in anyways, climbing over Richie, his bare feet hitting the cold hardwood floor with a hard _ thud. _He kneels down in front of Richie and looks up at him; his eyes are bloodshot and wet, and his face is dark red. Eddie scrambles back up to his feet.

“Shit, shit, shit, okay,” Eddie says. Richie swats at him again, but Eddie just makes Richie sit up straighter and holds him upright by his shoulders. He digs his fingers into Richie’s collarbones and squeezes, and Richie gasps from the press of his nails. “Look at me, Richie, hey, breathe with me, okay, chill out!”

Richie wheezes, trying to say something. Eddie leans in closer, says, “What? Richie, what, what’s wrong?”

Richie gasps. “You,” he says, then wheezes again. _ “You _fucking chill out,” he finally manages, breathless. Eddie thumps him in the side of the head, then holds his shoulders again.

“Breathe with me, Richie, okay?” he says again, and Richie nods, one hand pressed over his chest, the other wrapping long fingers around his throat. Eddie reaches out and takes that hand in both of his own, squeezing it as he starts his old breathing exercises.

As it turns out, not only does_ Eddie _ remember his old breathing exercises, but Richie _ also _remembers Eddie’s old breathing exercises, because he’s able to match it fairly quickly and go through them with Eddie. Eddie moves slowly, putting one hand on Richie’s back so he can guide him into sitting up straighter. Richie’s breath starts deepening from the fast, shallow panting; it starts relaxing out of its wheeze, instead gentling into a milder breath. He starts to calm down, and Eddie kneels on the bed beside him, one hand flat on Richie’s back, the other hand flat on Richie’s chest, holding him in place, feeling his lungs expand and contract, over and over.

He also feels Richie’s heart _ racing, _pounding out of rhythm, thumping so hard Eddie can feel it through his bones and flesh. He presses his forehead to Richie’s shoulder and breathes with him.

“Richie,” he says, and Richie’s hand comes up to cover his on his chest.

“Motherfucking _ clown nightmares,” _Richie gasps. He slumps in Eddie’s hold, and Eddie guides him back down to the bed, makes sure his head lands on his pillow. He strokes Richie’s cheek for just a moment, then climbs back over him, laying down close enough to touch him. Richie doesn’t move for a long, long moment before he rolls over to face Eddie, touching his face once they’re nearly nose to nose.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Eddie asks. He reaches up and twines his fingers with Richie’s when he starts stroking over the scar on his cheek. “Richie.”

“The Deadlights,” Richie says, softly. Eddie frowns, taking his hand out of Richie’s to lay it along his cheek. Richie shuts his eyes, but they shoot back open after only a split second.

“What did you see?” Eddie asks. Richie shakes his head as best as he can.

“I saw…” Richie starts to say, then stops. “I don’t… I can’t describe it. I tried…” He sighs, reaching up to rub at his face. Eddie catches his wrists. “With Bev. We tried to talk about it. It was…” He opens his eyes and they’re so red, shot through with burst veins and blood. The blood makes the blue of his irises stand out.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks. Richie shakes his head again, and Eddie pulls him in, tucking Richie’s head under his chin. He’s taller than Eddie, but he’s a beanpole, curled into a ball and pressed up against Eddie’s front. Eddie just holds him. “What did you see, Richie?”

“Lights,” Richie tells him. “White. Screaming. I heard—” Richie’s skin is all raised, covered in goosebumps, and he’s shaking under Eddie’s hands. “Screaming. I heard Stan. I saw— so much. I went forwards, and backwards, and I saw you die, and I saw Bill die, and I saw—” Richie gasps again, wheezing a shallow breath in, and Eddie pulls him closer, running his hand down Richie’s spine in what he hopes is a reassuring way.

“It’s okay,” Eddie tells him, and Richie shudders. “Richie, it’s okay. You’re okay now. I have you now, right, Richie?”

“Yeah,” Richie says, shutting his eyes.

“I have you now,” Eddie repeats. “Right, Richie?”

“What?” Richie asks. “Yeah, you do. Why?”

“Right, Richie?” Eddie says again. Richie opens his eyes and sees Eddie’s dead, decaying face, split open in front of him, and he screams, trying to scramble backwards to get away. Eddie’s hands are around him, squeezing too tight, and he can’t get away; Eddie slips his hands into Richie’s chest, pulling him open, cracking his ribcage apart, reaching in and grabbing his heart.

“Richie,” Eddie asks, and Richie can’t breathe, just gasping desperately, looking at Eddie holding his heart. It’s still beating, there, in mid-air, in Eddie’s hand. Richie claws at the hole in his chest. “You’re dying, Richie. You’re going away soon.” He squeezes the heart, and its beats start to slow, the heart itself blackening and calcifying before their eyes. Eventually, it crumbles to dust, and Eddie blows it out of his hand into the empty wound of Richie’s chest.

“Beep, beep, Richie,” Eddie says, and Richie sobs. “Time to stop. Time to stop, Richie. Richie—”

“_ —Richie, _ Richie, wake up, _ wake up, _you’re having a bad dream, Richie, come on,” Eddie’s saying, and when Richie opens his eyes, Eddie’s alive again. He gasps, reaching for his chest as he tries to breathe, and Eddie touches his face. “Whoah, whoah, Richie, chill out, what’s going on? What’s happening?”

“No, God, no, Eddie, don’t,” Richie sobs, pulling backwards, trying to get as far away from Eddie as he can. Without warning, there’s no more mattress under him, and he’s falling off the bed, slamming his head back into the floor.

“Richie!” Eddie exclaims. “Jesus motherfucking—” His face appears over the edge of the bed, then the rest of him, climbing out. “Richie, it’s me, babe, come on, it’s just— Hey,” he says, and Richie stops squeezing his eyes shut so hard.

“It’s not real,” Richie reminds himself. “It’s not real. It’s not real, not real, it’s not real—”

“Richie, this is real,” Eddie tells him, sounding upset now. Richie doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t stop talking, repeating it over and over again. “It’s real. You’re okay. You’re awake. Richie—”

“If you’re real,” Richie starts to say, then stops. “If you’re real, what am I afraid of?”

“What? Richie—”

“Tell me,” Richie snaps.

“Fuck, uh, clowns, motherfu— werewolves, you hate werewolves—”

Richie’s eyes open and he tries to pry Eddie’s hands off of him. “Stop, you’re not him—”

“No, no, you’re scared of— of forgetting?” Eddie says. “Right? You were scared of going missing. That I’d forget about you. Right? That’s what you said you had a nightmare about.”

“You can’t— He _ knows—” _

“It knows what you’re afraid of,” Eddie says. “It doesn’t know what you love.” Eddie reaches out, touches Richie’s face. Richie jerks, trying to get his head away. Eddie’s hand follows. “You love me, right? And you love— comedy specials. Those weird ones where they destroy the sets. And you—”

Richie stops squirming, hands still wrapped around Eddie’s wrists. “I don’t— I. Eddie—”

“It’s okay,” Eddie tells him, and Richie collapses into him, letting Eddie pull him into his lap right there on the floor, sobbing, trying to breathe all over again. It’s a disgusting sort of déjà vu that makes his stomach turn, and he has to pull away from Eddie. He grabs the trash basket next to the bed and manages to kneel up and over it before he vomits.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie says, leaning up to smooth Richie’s hair back from his face. “What the fuck, Richie? What’s going on?”

“He was— Something was in my head,” Richie tells him. Eddie frowns, and then he jumps backward when Richie looks up at him. Richie immediately panics, shoving the trash basket away and scrambling away from Eddie. “What the fuck? What’s wrong? Eddie, you—”

“Your eyes,” Eddie says. “Your eyes, Richie.”

Richie stands up, steadying himself against the wall and feeling along to the lightswitch near the door. He hits the switch, catches his own reflection in the mirror, and screams when he sees his eyes glazed over with a glowing white.

* * *

“So, what, the Deadlights are still in your head? Is that what you’re saying?” Beverly asks, tearing her muffin to shreds in Richie and Eddie’s kitchen. “What exactly did you see?”

“I had a vision where I was having— I don’t know, a panic attack or an asthma attack or something, and Eddie…” Richie looks over at Eddie. “A thing. That looked like Eddie, I guess. It calmed me down, and then it…” Richie hesitates again, then looks over at Beverly. “It ripped my heart out of my chest and killed me.”

Beverly stares at him. “It _ killed _you.”

“Yeah, it _ killed _ me. I felt it. It sucked.” Richie props his chin up on his hand, elbow on the table. He surveys Beverly. “Why do you ask?”

“I watched myself die,” Beverly says. “Like I watched Stan die, and all of—” She stops, swallows. Looks back down at her muffin. _ “I _didn’t die. I was watching.”

Richie shrugs. “I don’t know, different strokes for different folks, Bev, we can’t all have the same alien visions—”

“Beep, beep, Richie,” Eddie says off-handedly, and Richie twitches, glancing out the window of the diner, jaw set.

“It just sounds different than what I saw, anyways,” Beverly continues. “And what happened after?”

“He definitely had a panic attack after,” Eddie says. “His heart was pounding, he couldn’t breathe.”

Just listening to them talk is confusing Richie, so he lets himself stare out the window, getting distracted quickly by a man standing on the sidewalk, arguing into his phone. His mind drifts, just staring, gently sliding out of his awareness of the room. Just staring.

“Richie,” Eddie says, his voice so abruptly loud and close that Richie jumps. Eddie grabs his hand, says, “Hey, hey, Rich, where are you?”

“What?” Richie asks. “A diner, right? What’s the—”

Eddie looks bewildered, and Richie looks around to realize— right. Not a diner. Their kitchen. The kitchen he and Eddie share, because they live here, together, in sin, just like any normal couple would.

“Oh,” Richie says. “I thought—” He looks around. “Where’s Beverly?”

“Here’s Beverly,” her voice says, but he can’t see her. She comes up from behind him, and he twitches, but she just sets a glass of water down in front of him and hugs him from behind. Eddie’s fingers find Richie’s pulse jumping in his throat, and he frowns.

“What?” Richie asks. “Your face isn’t supposed to do that, dipshit, you’re gonna freeze that way—”

“Motherfucker, you’re having a panic attack—”

“Don’t _ blame this on the panic attack—” _

“Richie, Richie, Jesus,” Beverly says, peeling them apart. She looks down into Richie’s eyes and gasps, backing away from him, her hand over her mouth.

“Eddie,” she whispers, and Eddie turns to look at him. His hand flies up and clamps down over Richie’s eyes, and Richie makes a disgruntled sound, instinctively trying to pull away. Eddie holds him in place.

“It’s okay,” Eddie tells him. “It’s okay, Richie, just keep your eyes closed, it’ll go away. Okay?”

“Okay,” Richie says, keeping his eyes closed as tightly as he could. Eddie kept his hand there.

“What do you see, Richie?” Eddie asks. Richie can’t see anything, just black and red pulsing, the starbursts of his eyes moving back and forth.

“Nothing,” he tells them. There’s silence for a second. “Hello? I have an alien brain in _ my _ brain? I’d appreciate at least a fucking _ how do you do, _if that’s not too much to—”

“Beep beep, Richie,” Beverly says, and Richie’s head shakes to one side, exhaling sharply. He turns his face away from them, Eddie’s hand slipping away. Richie buries his face in his own hands.

“Something’s wrong,” Eddie says, and Richie realizes belatedly that he’s not talking to him, but to Beverly. “He keeps having nightmares and forgetting where he is. He’ll start talking like we were having a conversation when we weren’t, and sometimes he thinks I’m not real. He’s disoriented all the time—”

“Stop _ talking about me _ like I’m not sitting _ right fucking here,” _Richie snaps. He puts his head in his hands and can barely think through the haze fogging his mind.

“It’s okay, Richie,” Beverly tells him, voice soft. “Hey. It’s okay. We’re gonna help, okay? We’ll figure this out. It’s not gonna hurt you anymore.”

Richie nods, eyes still closed, the heels of his hands pressed into his eye sockets.

“Call Bill,” Beverly says, and Eddie picks his phone up off the table and starts tapping away at it. Beverly starts stroking her nails through Richie’s hair, along his scalp, and he relaxes a fraction.

* * *

When the Losers are together again in Eddie and Richie’s apartment, there’s so much to talk about, nobody knows where to begin.

“So,” Richie eventually says. _ “‘We all float down here,’ _ am I right, guys—”

“Goddamnit, with the fucking Voice,” Eddie snaps.

_ “Excuse _ me for using my _ one skill _ for good instead of evil,” Richie argues. “Nobody _ else _was saying anything and I’m the one who’s dy—”

“Stop,” Eddie says, and Richie actually does, teeth grinding as his mouth snaps shut. “Don’t say that. You’re gonna be fine.” He looks to Mike. “Tell him he’s fine, Mike.”

“What the hell are you looking at me for?” Mike asks. “Do I look like a Google to you? I'm not a doctor, Eddie."

“Did you say _ a _Google?” Richie asks. “How old are you, Mike? I was under the impression we were the same—”

“Jesus Christ, Richie, do you ever turn it off?” Eddie demands, and Richie laughs.

“Motherfucker, _ no, _I’m running out of time to—”

“Stop!” Eddie snaps. “You’re not gonna die, Richie, for the love of God, fuck off.”

“Oh my God, h-h-how has this gotten worse?” Bill asks. 

“I actually asked that,” Mike says. “It was a horrible story.”

“It was _ actually _the story of the horniest I’ve ever been,” Richie explains, ignoring Eddie’s hand smacking at his face, “and if you’d like to hear it, I’d love to share—”

“They don’t,” Eddie insists.

“Well, now we do,” Beverly says.

“Oh, Bev, you’ve heard it a million times, baby,” Richie says, grinning. “The day we met, I always knew—”

“Are you serious?” Eddie asks. “I’m seriously asking. Are you serious? Are you—”

“If you say serious, babe, I’ll motherfucking _ scream,” _Richie says in his sweetest Voice, and Eddie gets up from the couch and puts his hands up in the air.

“I’m getting a drink of water. You stress me the fuck out,” Eddie tells him. He storms off to the kitchen, which isn’t really all that far away, but he’s behind the half-wall so Richie can’t see him anymore. He sighs, clapping his hands down on his thighs.

“So, lads and lassies, looks like I’m not long for this world, so here’s my last will and testament,” Richie says. Mike groans.

“Richie—”

“To Beverly,” Richie says, ignoring Ben, “I bequeath my talk show, because, really, we don’t need another white dude on television, even if I _ am _punching the homo card—”

“Richie,” Beverly interrupts, smiling. “Stop.”

Richie hesitates, then shrugs. “Mike can have it if he wants, but I’m really not sure if Bill’s the best idea—”

“Richie, if you d-d-d-don’t knock it off, you _ are _gonna d-d-die,” Bill says, laughing, and Richie can’t help it; his face falls, and he looks away. He laughs, after a beat, but it’s too late. Bill’s laughter dies down, too, and he frowns. “Richie, I’m s-s-s-s—”

“Save it, Bill,” Richie says. He laughs again, then stands. “Well, you know, all I really ask is that you don’t—”

“Richie—”

“Forget me,” Richie says, without pausing. Beverly shakes her head and starts to stand, but Richie waves her off. “Nah, nah, I’m good. I’m just gonna take a lap, if that’s alright, Coach, thanks.”

He leaves before anyone else can say anything, hands shaking as he all but jogs into the kitchen, nearly bowling Eddie over in the process. Eddie turns to him, red-faced and angry, but his entire expression drops right off the second he looks up at Richie.

“What’s wr—” Eddie manages, before Richie grabs him and hugs him, tucking his face into Eddie’s hair. Eddie’s hands come up, rub at his back gently. Richie shakes his head.

“Eddie,” Richie manages, before he’s lurching away, and Eddie’s hands release him on instinct so Richie can stumble to the sink and vomit down it. He can feel Eddie’s fingertips touch the back of his neck, rubbing his thumb at the knob of his spine. Richie shudders, then turns his head, and Eddie gasps, a fearful, panic-inducing sound. Richie turns his head to vomit in the sink again. Eddie shivers, and Richie feels it through every inch of his body.

“Is he okay?” Ben asks, and Richie’s forehead drops down to press against the back of the sink as he tries to catch his breath.

“Yeah, he’s fucking great,” Richie says, then gags before retching again. Eddie’s hands stroke his hair back from his sweaty forehead, and he shuts his eyes and leans into the feeling.

“Oh, he’s back with us,” Mike says. “You okay, Richie?”

“What?” he looks up at Eddie, but it’s not Eddie, it’s Beverly, and he turns around— No Eddie. “What— Where’d Eddie— Where is—”

“Hey, Richie, Richie, c-c-calm down,” Bill tells him, and Richie can’t find where Bill is. “Oh, God— Hey, Rich! Hey, R-R-R—”

“Oh, fuck,” Richie groans, and then his knees buckle. Beverly tries to hold onto him, but her hands aren’t in the right place to catch him, so he slips through her fingers to the floor. Richie hears running footsteps that skid to a stop next to him.

“What happened to him?” Eddie demands. Richie’s head is aching, but Eddie’s hands pick it up and settle it in his lap. He’s kneeling there, right on the tile, and Richie feels like the room tips on its side, like they’re going to roll onto the ceiling, so he turns onto his back and stares upwards, trying not to get dizzy.

“What’s wrong with him?” Ben asks. “Why is he doing that?”

“Motherfucker,” Eddie spits. “Richie, honey, hey, look at me, Rich, Richie—”

Richie doesn’t feel like he can see anything. His vision’s hazing, blurring in and out, and he can hear voices that have no faces. He knows the voices; he _ knows _he knows the voices, and still he can’t see who he’s talking to. He gasps, coughing and choking on a breath, and he rolls over, coughing again, trying to get air back into his lungs. He coughs, and sees blood splattered across the tile, and he can barely breathe, but the light catches against his own blood, and he sighs.

“Richie, don’t,” Eddie’s voice says, but it’s so far away, it sounds like water slipping through his fingers. Richie shakes his head, he thinks. His chest _ screams, _ his head is pounding, his lungs don’t feel like they’re inflating; he reaches out for Eddie, just so he has someone to remind him where he is. Where he’s _ supposed _to be. He doesn’t really remember anymore.

Richie blinks, and he sees him again. Pennywise. He sees Pennywise. And Pennywise is holding Bill, and Bill’s just a kid again, and Richie _ remembers _this. He knows the script. He knows this part.

“I told you, Bill,” he says. He sizes Pennywise up, heart pounding, hands shaking. “I fucking told you, I don’t wanna die. It’s _ your _ fault. You punched me in the face,” and he counts off, “you made me walk through shitty water, you dragged me into a fucking crackhead house!” Richie eyeballs the bat out of the corner of his glasses lens. He hadn’t minded doing all of those things, when they’d happened; it’s just, in retrospect, it’s fucking _ insane, _ what he’d do for these people. Literally _ anything, _and that’s not an exaggeration. “And now—”

He grabs the bat.

“I’m gonna have to kill this fucking clown,” he says, and he looks up, and he blinks, and he sees a white haze. He assumes it’s Pennywise, and says, “I’m gonna have to kill this fucking— W-Welcome to the Losers’ Club, asshole—”

“Richie, stop,” Eddie’s voice says, so Richie blinks, trying desperately to see Eddie’s face. He can’t see Eddie, it’s just a white haze and what was once a sewer, or a basement, and a yellow rain jacket, and the faces of his friends, warping in and out of a blur of sound and color.

“I’m gonna have to—” Richie says, then gasps, leaning into a crack of cold across his face. He coughs, nearly choking again, gagging, and when he catches his breath, he looks up at the light. Eddie’s face blocks it in the next moment. Richie laughs, relieved.

“Hey, Eddie, man,” he says. At least, that’s what he thinks he says. He struggles to look up, and then he blinks, and he realizes his eyes had been closed for some time. He can barely breathe. Eddie’s face is red when he sees it.

“Holy motherfucking _ shit! Fuck!” _Eddie exclaims, and before Richie can ask what the fuck is going on, Eddie grabs him and kisses him on the mouth, then the forehead, then his face is smushed into Eddie’s chest.

“What the fuck?” Richie asks. “What the hell is going on?”

“You were—” Eddie starts, then stops, pausing to just breathe, looking away. Richie turns his head to see Beverly crying onto Ben’s shoulders, his arms wrapped tightly around her as he stares directly at Richie. Ben shakes his head, looks away, like he can’t meet Richie’s eyes.

Richie blinks, then realizes how fucked up his vision’s getting. He looks for Eddie again.

“Can I have my glasses?” he asks, and Eddie frowns at him.

“What?” he asks. Richie frowns back, confused.

“Can I have my glasses, man, where’d you put my glasses?” Richie asks. Eddie reaches out and pulls Richie’s glasses off of his face, and Richie’s vision gets so much worse. His hands start to shake. “Ohoho, mother_fucker! _ This _ motherfucking—” _He tries to get a hand under himself, but his arm won’t move. He looks back to Eddie. “Eddie, my arm—”

“Shit, is it broken?” Eddie asks, pulling back to lift Richie’s arm up. It’s not just that arm, it’s both arms, both legs, he can’t move any of them and he’s starting to get _ so _tired.

“Eddie,” Richie groans, trying to pull his body closer to Eddie’s. Eddie reaches down, strokes Richie’s hair back from his face.

“It’s okay,” Eddie says. Richie is abruptly thrust into the air, high off the ground, and he can see the Deadlights again, off in the distance, far above his head, where the moon ought to be. He could hear screaming, crying. He stared up into the endless black center of it and watched it as it started to turn stark white. He laughed, eyes tearing up. He can see the Kissing Bridge, deep, _ deep _inside the Deadlights. He can see a man getting thrown over the bridge into the water. He can see himself as a child, carving his initials into the wood. He can see himself and Eddie as adults, kissing next to the initials. He reaches out.

As his hand extends, the vision warps. Eddie’s face starts to contort, to twist into some grotesque masquerade of Eddie. He’s dying, Richie realizes, and so’s the Richie standing next to the warped Eddie. They’re both melting, dripping apart and trickling down into the river below. He screams, tries to move, but he’s frozen in place, useless, empty, a shell with a consciousness bleeding out through the eyes. He’s abruptly infuriated, angrier than he’s ever been in his life, and he screams again; this time, the scream isn’t afraid. It’s a roar; it’s rage, and he digs deep down into himself, to pull the last of himself out. He throws it out with cold, tingling hands, and Eddie’s face snaps back into place.

“Richie!” Eddie shouts. Richie frowns, because Eddie’s mouth hasn’t moved, but he heard his voice anyways. He blinks, and hears another distant, watery, _ “Richie!” _

Richie feels pressure near his legs, then near his face. Eddie’s face swims in front of him, and he reaches out for it; suddenly, he’s looking down at Eddie, standing up on the ground. He stares at Eddie, confused.

“Thank God, Richie,” Eddie says, and his face is red and wet and swollen, and Richie reaches out for him.

“Eddie,” Richie breathes. “You’re safe now.”

Eddie’s begging him to stay awake, repeating his name over and over; Richie lets him pull them together just as he finally loses consciousness.

* * *

The first thing Richie realizes is that he’s asleep, but he’s waking up now. It’s the sort of dawning realization that comes with a rising awareness, like sunlight peeking through the blinds over the crest of the trees outside. A sort of glimmering, leaves-shuffling slide into wakefulness.

_ “Motherfucker,” _ Richie curses _ meaningfully, _and then Eddie’s hovering over him.

“Jesus motherfucking Christ, Richie, don’t you ever, _ ever _do that to me again, do you hear me?” Eddie demands. Richie nods, baffled as Eddie kisses him on the forehead and starts to tear up again.

“What’d I do, Eds?” Richie croaks. “My— _ Jesus.” _

Eddie grabs the water pitcher and cup from the side table and fills it for Richie before helping him drink it. He’s right to help; Richie can’t get his hands to stop shaking.

“The doctors said you had constrictive pericarditis,” Eddie tells him. “Almost an infection. It scarred your heart, so you had acute rapid heart failure. The guy in the emergency room said he’d never seen anything like it.”

“I’m one of a kind,” Richie says. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“They said you can get it from any number of things,” Eddie tells him. “They said yours was confusing. It almost looked like you’d had trauma on your heart from the inside out, some sort of weird radiation and…” Eddie stops, exhales.

“What?” Richie asks. “It can’t be any motherfucking worse than trauma on my heart from the _ inside out.” _

“Bite… marks,” Eddie finishes. They look at each other for a long moment. “But that… couldn’t possibly be right.”

“Nnnnnno,” Richie drags out. Eddie takes the cup back from him. “What actually happened?”

“The Deadlights were still inside you,” Eddie says, “but you pushed them out.”

“I _ pushed _ them out?” Richie asks. “What the f— No, I didn’t. I think I’d remember fucking pushing the _ Deadlights out—” _

“You shot them out your mouth,” Eddie says, “and your eyes. You reached out to something and then they just— they flew out of you. You don’t remember?”

Richie doesn’t, not really. He remembers a hazy light, and the Kissing Bridge, and Eddie’s face in their kitchen as Richie struggled to maintain consciousness. Bits and pieces.

“Is everyone okay?” Richie asks. “Nobody’s like— hurt, right? I didn’t hurt anyone?”

“Did you _ hurt _ anyone?” Eddie repeats. “No, no, you didn’t hurt anyone, Richie, you—” He stops, catches his breath. “You had a seizure and your heart stopped. You died. Well, nearly. They brought you back.” Eddie holds Richie’s hand tight between his own. “You didn’t hurt _ anyone, _Richie. Except maybe shaving thirty years off my lifespan, you maniac.”

“I feel like shit,” Richie says. “My head is _ throbbing.” _

“No shit, asshole,” Eddie tells him. “They said you’d been in advanced stages of heart failure for weeks. What the _ fuck, _Richie?”

“What do you _ mean, _ what the fuck, _ Richie?” _ Richie repeats. “What the fuck, _ Deadlights? _ I didn’t do _ jackshit, _that fucking clown fucked up my heart!”

“Why didn’t _ you _go to the doctor, Richie?” Eddie asks. Richie’s so confused.

“What?” Richie asks. “I didn’t feel… Nothing was wrong?”

“You were acting confused for weeks, man,” Eddie tells him, and Richie frowns. “A few months after I came back. You’d just start to zone out. But you’re better now, though! You’re doing much, much better. It looks like it’s— like _ It’s _all out of your system. You should be okay.” He touches Richie’s face gingerly, laying his fingers along his cheek.

“I didn’t know,” Richie says. He feels betrayed, like his own brain and his own body teamed up to take him down. It’s a strange feeling, to feel separate from everything that technically makes him, _ him. _He looks up at Eddie. “I didn’t know.”

“I know, but that’s okay,” Eddie says. “Hey, it’s okay! Because, because, hey, hey, hey— I remembered, right? _ I _remembered, so you don’t have to! You don’t have to remember, because I did! Because we balance each other out, and even though you’re in the h… hospital,” Eddie says, nearly gagging, and Richie frowns, “we’re doing okay, we’re both alive still. Hey, hey, we’ve both died now!”

Richie looks at him, then exhales. “Holy fucking shit, can you breathe? Did someone let you have coffee? You know you can’t have coffee after dark.”

“It’s, like, three in the morning, Rich,” Eddie says. “Nobody’s awake, just me.”

“Are you allowed to be here?” Richie asks. Eddie frowns.

“Obviously, I’m allowed to be here with my _ husband,” _ Eddie says, and Richie breaks into a cold sweat. The emphasis Eddie puts on the word _ husband _catches him off-guard, and he wonders if he forgot more than he’d originally thought. His eyes well up at the thought, and he starts to feel sick, so he just closes his eyes. “Hey, hey, what happened? Where’d you go?”

“I forgot,” Richie says mournfully. “I forgot we got married. I’m so sorry, Eds, I didn’t mean it, I’m sure it’ll come back to me and I’ll remember it—”

“We’re not married,” Eddie interrupts him. Richie frowns at him.

“What the fuck?” Richie asks. “You just said—”

“I _ told _them we were married,” Eddie says, “so they had to let me stay.”

“You’re… smart,” Richie says, like his heart isn’t trying to escape out his mouth. “Also, what the fuck’s up with my eyes? I can barely fucking see, where are my glasses?”

“Your glasses kinda smashed,” Eddie tells him. Richie groans. “No, no, it’s okay, see, because the Deadlights actually… kinda fucked up your eyes.”

“No,” Richie says, chest going cold. “No, you’re fucking with me, right? Tell me you’re fucking with me, Eddie, because that’s not fucking funny—”

“Richie,” Eddie interrupts him, grabbing his phone and flicking the camera to selfie mode. “Look, can you see?”

“Fucking _ no,” _ Richie says, “didn’t we _ just establish _ that I can’t motherfucking _ see—” _

“Shut up,” Eddie tells him. He digs through his pockets and unearths the thick lenses of Richie’s glasses. He passes them over, and Richie sighs.

“God, I guess a character who wears two monocles would be a _ little _funny,” he says, trying to squint the lenses in place. They’re too thick; it makes him nervous. Richie looks into the phone again and can see at least a little bit better, but not by much; enough to tell his eyes are paler than they had been, and that his hair had lightened in some spots considerably, some to grey. Just like those spots he remembered in Beverly’s hair. He shuddered.

“God, I look like a shitshow,” Richie comments. Eddie takes his phone back.

“You also haven’t showered in days and just went through major heart failure,” Eddie reminds him. “You’re looking pretty good for all the fucking shit you’ve been through.”

"What's the game plan from here, then, Doc? How am I going to get better?” Richie asks. Eddie’s face flushes, and he looks almost… angry? Or guilty? “Eds? What the fuck? What are you thinking abo—”

“As you died,” Eddie says, “I got stronger. Like, so much stronger, Richie. Your heartbeat was slowing down, but mine was speeding up. We were connected. And when your heart started to scar and calcify and die, mine started to get stronger in its place. It was—” Eddie looks like he wants to cry. “It was feeding off of you, we think. Bill and Bev and I.”

“What about Mike and Ben?” Richie asks. Eddie shrugged.

“They’re not sure,” Eddie says. “There’s a lot of moving pieces—”

“Oh, like me being insane?” Richie asks. “Stan would’ve understood—”

“You _ can’t _bring Stan up like that—”

“Why not?” Richie demands. “We all died. You, me, and Stan. I’m here. I brought _ you _ back here. And he’s still motherfucking _ gone, Eddie. _ He’s _ gone. _He was my best—” Richie shakes his head, then looks away. “Jesus. I hate this shit.”

“You were dying because of me,” Eddie tells him abruptly. “The ritual you did required a sacrifice.”

The silence in the room rings in Richie’s ears for a long minute, then another. He can’t even begin to gather his thoughts at first; they scatter away like birds from a dog. Eventually, he starts to grasp what that means, that he did this whole motherfucking ritual to get Eddie back and didn’t understand it required a sacrifice, and he sacrificed his _ motherfucking self. _

“What do we do?" Richie asks. Eddie's looking down at his hands, folded up in his lap. His face is still red and angry.

"We don't know," Eddie says. "We aren't sure if you dying satisfied the sacrifice or not." He falls quiet for a moment, then says, "Richie—"

"Don't," Richie interrupts, before he can get rolling. "Nope, don't—"

"I don't want to die but I don't want you to die, either," Eddie says, and it's a deep, open honesty, like Eddie cracked his ribcage open and trusts Richie with what he can find inside. "I'm so scared, Richie, I don't know what to do. What do we do?"

"The ritual is already done," Richie says, with more conviction than he feels. "We can't go back now, and I’ve already put so much _ work _ into bringing you back to life, it would be a shame to waste it _ now _ when we're not even sure what it means."

"I don't want to die," Eddie says again. "Richie, I _ really _don't want to die, I don't—"

"Hey, hey, calm down, nobody's dying on my watch, you dipshit," Richie tells him. His chest hurts just saying it; he knows he can't protect Eddie forever, and he knows he'd die trying if he had to. It's a solemn thought, so he shoves it away. “Anyways, all we have to do is just… not die. And that’s—”

“—Are you fucking kidding m—”

“—that,” Richie finishes. “I’m not gonna let you die, Eds. That’s something I can tell you as a hard and cold fact, homie. That’s _ never _gonna happen.”

Eddie looks at him for a long, hard moment, then he gets up. “Move over.”

“What?” Richie asks, and Eddie tucks the blankets around him and shuffles him to one side himself, ignoring Richie’s indignant protests. Eddie climbs into the hospital bed beside him, careful not to touch him in case it hurts, but Richie pulls Eddie’s head under his chin like he always does anyways. Eddie shivers.

“God, I hate this,” Eddie says. Richie strokes the back of Eddie’s head. “I’m supposed to be comforting _ you.” _

“It’s fine, man, I’m used to you making everything about yourself,” Richie tells him. Eddie huffs. “If you don’t wanna be here, babe, you can leave, I won’t feel bad.” He finds that he really does mean it; he knows that Eddie hates being in hospitals, hates the possibilities for sicknesses and diseases that surround him in the air, and he wouldn’t mind if Eddie wanted to go home to avoid that.

“I want to be here with _ you,” _ Eddie says, and he sounds actually sincere. “I just hate that you’re _ here. _I want to take you home and just take care of you myself.”

“I know, angel dust,” Richie tells him, kissing the top of his head and ignoring Eddie saying, _ “That’s not a pet name, that’s a drug,” _under his breath. “The big fancy doctor people have to glue my brain back together, Eds, I can’t do that by myself.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Eddie asks, too quickly. Richie tips his face up to look Eddie in the eye.

“You been thinking about this for a while?” Richie asks in return. Eddie looks away. “Why didn’t I tell you what, Eddie? That sometimes I just— don’t know where I am? That I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t, and sometimes I— I think you’re gonna be dead again, or _ I’m _ dead, or you’re a fucking monster _ sewer clown—” _

“Richie—”

“—because I really don’t know how that would’ve been taken,” Richie continues, starting to work himself up into hysteria. “I can’t _ imagine _ what would’ve happened if I told a fucking doctor _ that.” _

“You could’ve told _ me,” _ Eddie clarifies, plaintive. _ “I _ would’ve understood, Richie. I don’t get why you didn’t tell _ me.” _

Richie falls quiet for a moment, and then he says, “I was scared. Alright? Jesus.”

“Scared?” Eddie asks. “What were you scared of?”

Richie’s quiet again. He’s not sure what he was scared of, exactly, or at least not sure of how to verbalize it. He knows he didn’t want to freak Eddie out; he knows he was a _ little _ worried that Eddie might not want to stick around someone whose body was slowly betraying them. A big part of him just wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening, and that if he just _ pretended _hard enough, it would all just… go away. Which, he realizes, is stupid; however, he was also fairly certain that he had no choice and he was going to die regardless, so it was just easier to keep the status quo if the outcome would be the same either way.

“I guess I didn’t want to lose what we have,” Richie says. “Or. Had, I guess.”

“What, did you think I would leave?” Eddie asks, and he sounds crushed, so Richie actually looks at him again. His entire expression has dropped, and he looks just so sad, all of a sudden. “Richie—”

“I didn’t want to die knowing how miserable you’d be,” Richie finally says. “I didn’t want you to have to watch me die.”

Eddie doesn’t reply. He just keeps looking at Richie, his brow furrowing, his eyes wet. He blinks, and a tear slips down one cheek; he huffs, looking away.

“I almost did anyways,” Eddie says. “And I didn’t even _ know. _What if I never got the chance to say goodbye to you, you asshole?”

“I’ve watched you die before,” Richie reminds him. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, Eds. I couldn’t make you do that, because when I—” He stops, because his voice almost breaks, and he takes a deep, shuddering breath in. “Losing you was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I just didn’t want you to have to deal with what I’d dealt with, okay? You don’t understand how— You’re—” Richie makes a frustrated sound, because he’s already lost the words he needs most. He’s fine to chatter away when other people want him to be serious, but when he actually _ wants _ to say something important, the right words escape him. “My head fucking _ hurts, _Eds.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Eddie tells him. “Calm down, Rich, alright? Everything’s okay, we’re both okay, you can feel my heartbeat, there, see? It’s fine.”

It’s almost embarrassing how much calmer Richie feels just touching his hand to the pulse jumping in Eddie’s throat. He shuts his eyes and tries to stop the back of his nose from prickling; his whole face feels hot.

“Don’t work yourself up,” Eddie tells him, shifting to sit up and pull Richie’s head against his chest. Richie keeps his eyes closed; it’s easier to deal with than the reminder of how horrible his vision’s gotten without glasses available to remedy it. “You’ve been through a lot, Rich. Your head and your heart have a lot of healing to do.”

“‘They should’ve sent a poet,’” Richie quotes, and he can almost _ feel _Eddie rolling his eyes. “You’re right, though.”

“We should get therapists.”

“Oh, do you fucking think?” Richie asks. “We’re a couple of hot fucking messes, Kaspbrak. We need medicines that don’t even _ exist, _and you’d fucking know.”

“God, you scared the fucking shit out of me, Richie,” Eddie snaps abruptly. Richie frowns. “You can’t do that, okay? I need to know you’ll be honest with me. I trust you, Richie. Imagine if I hadn’t told _ you _and this happened—”

“You wouldn’t have been able to keep it from me,” Richie interrupts.

“Because I _ trust you,” _ Eddie says. “Do you not trust _ me?” _

“Of course I trust you,” Richie tells him. “I also love you. Eds, babe, I love you so much, and you _ can’t—” _ His voice does break, now, but he doesn’t lift his head. Eddie doesn’t make him, just keeps holding him, waiting for him to get it together enough to continue. Richie _ doesn’t _ — get it together, that is — but he keeps going anyways. “You can’t ask me to do that. You just can’t. I love you—”

“Richie, Richie, stop,” Eddie tells him, and Richie’s breath hitches on a sob, and _ that’s _ what gets him. He just breaks right open, sobbing brokenly, and Eddie rubs up and down his back. Richie can’t hear what he’s saying over the sounds of his own sobbing, but the fact that he can feel Eddie’s hands and hear the low murmur of his voice is the only thing grounding him in reality at _ all _right now.

“It’s okay,” Richie hears Eddie say, finally. “Richie, it’s okay, I’ve got you. Calm down. I’ve gotcha.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Richie half-laughs, trying to shove the tears down and force them into stopping. This time, it seems, they won’t be. “God. I didn’t mean to do this. I only wanted to fix it.”

“Don’t apologize,” Eddie says. “At least, not for this, anyways. Apologize for putting me through fucking hell, instead.”

“Only when you apologize for dying on me.”

“That wasn’t my _ fault, _I was just trying to protect…” Eddie trails off, then slowly finishes, “…you.”

“Yeah, _ there _it is,” Richie says in response to Eddie’s realization.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, _ oh.” _

“I’m sorry,” Eddie tells him. “I didn’t really… I was just thinking about how I was feeling.”

“Like I said, I’m used to it,” Richie says, and Eddie pinches his arm. “Ow, motherfucker, I’m in the _ hospital, _what would the nurses say?”

“They all think you’re adorable, actually,” Eddie says. “You’d think you were a puppy or some twenty-year-old instead of an elderly comedian, the way they all look after you.”

“How long have we been here?” Richie asks, because from all of that, he just gets that Eddie apparently has some rapport with the nurses here, which might mean they’ve been in the hospital for a _ while. _

Eddie’s silence only confirms it, and his stomach sinks when Eddie says, “Nearly three weeks. But it’s okay, it was medically induced, these last couple of days have just been a— a waiting game for you to come back on your own.”

Richie’s fucking _ speechless, _ but only for a second before he says, “You didn’t think that was important enough to tell me at the _ beginning _of this conversation?”

“I wanted it to come up organically!” Eddie exclaims. “So sue me! It’s not exactly the greatest news in the world to deliver, that your boyfriend’s been in— been _ unconscious _ for three weeks? What would I— What are you smiling at? Are you smiling because I said _ boyfriend? _You’re such a fucking homo, Richie, I swear to God—”

“What the hell is going on in here?” a nurse with some European accent asks, bursting into the room, and sees Richie and Eddie curled up together in the bed. She flicks the light on, and Richie hisses, turning his face into Eddie’s chest to hide from the brightness stinging his eyes. _ “Eddie. _ We _ told _you to tell us when he woke up.”

“It was _ late, _I didn’t want to disturb you, Danny,” Eddie says, sounding properly chastised despite his excuses, and he gets out of the bed after a moment; presumably waved away by Nurse Danny. Richie keeps his eyes closed and one hand over them throughout the ordeal.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s late,” Danny says, and Richie places the accent as heavily Irish. “I told you to tell us.” Richie feels a small hand on his shoulder. “Richie?”

“Yeah, Richie,” Eddie confirms, at the same time Richie says, “Yes, ma’am?”

“I want to look in your eyes, Richie, if that’s alright with you,” Danny tells him, and Richie hesitantly lowers his hand and opens his eyes to look up at her. She smiles at him, then she’s shining a penlight in his eyes, and he flinches back.

The rest of her examination of him is pretty much equally painful and confusing, and he’s a little horrified to see the scars on his chest. He knows he’s got some gnarly scars forming on his face and his head, too, but he can’t see those from his current view, so he ignores them for the time being. He doesn’t even need to really focus on the exam, either, and he just lets Eddie fill the silence with questions for Danny; questions about his treatment, his care, about his medications and his risk factors and anything he could think of in his poor little anxiety-riddled brain to ask her.

“For now,” Danny says, squeezing Richie’s wrist and bringing his attention back to their conversation, “all you need to do is rest, and we’re gonna wake you up again in the morning to talk with your neurologist and your trauma surgeon, okay? Your cardiologist will be in in the afternoon. How’s that sound?”

“Peachy-keen, jelly bean,” Richie tells her, yawning.

“Rest,” she tells him again, gentle but forceful. “You need it. I know it might not feel like it, but you need conscious rest.”

“I gotcha, I gotcha,” Richie says. Eddie stands, and Danny actually _ hugs _him. She points a finger at him, stern even though she has to be near their age.

“You tell me _ right away _if he needs anything,” she says, and leaves. Richie raises an eyebrow at Eddie as soon as she’s gone.

“I’m sorry, I’m in a coma for three weeks saving _ your _ass and you go and fuck the first hot nurse you see?” Richie asks, and Eddie flushes, fighting a smile off his face.

“She’s not the _ first _hot nurse I saw,” Eddie says, and Richie goes to grab his pillow to fling it at Eddie, but he accidentally yanks his IV out of his hand in the process. He and Eddie both look down at the hole in his hand for a long moment before Eddie groans.

“Danny!” Eddie calls, turning around to go back out into the hallway through the door Danny just used, and Richie leans over the side of his bed and vomits on the floor, horrified.

* * *

They have to sedate Richie, in the end, because he panics and starts to dissociate and won’t let go of Eddie, clinging to him desperately and sobbing. Eddie just holds him and strokes his hair and tells him it’s all alright, until Danny’s able to get his IV back in and finally sedate him. He drifts off fairly quickly, blinking hard and slumping into Eddie’s hold, and Eddie just keeps rubbing his hands up and down Richie’s back.

His recovery in the hospital takes a week before they’re comfortable discharging him, and it’s a _ hard _motherfucking week. Richie’s obviously miserable the whole time, trying to distinguish gaps in his memory from dreams, reality from the visions the Deadlights had put into his head. It’s all so baffling and disorienting, but he’s finally starting to sort through it all. Eddie tries really hard to be patient, and then he goes into the hospital room’s bathroom at night and cries quietly into his hands.

He’s up half the night with Richie every single night after that, anyways, because Richie keeps having terrifying nightmares that he wakes up screaming from. Eddie always asks what he sees, but Richie just shakes his head each time, curling up against Eddie and stifling his own tears. The nightmares don’t stop after Richie’s discharged and goes home; if anything, they get worse, because he’s disoriented after having adjusted to his hospital room and their schedule, and now he’s home and on prescription pain medication and he gets confused so easily. Sometimes, Eddie will just find him standing in the middle of rooms, staring at the floor like he doesn’t know how he got there or what he went there for. Other times, Richie will look up at him and just start talking, as if they had been having a conversation for several minutes already and he was answering something Eddie was saying.

Richie assures Eddie that he’s okay, though. He says he knows what it feels like to have the Deadlights inside of him, and this isn’t that; this is the after-effects of that, he insists. His doctors seem to think so, too; though they don’t know anything about the Deadlights, they’re not stupid. They know trauma when they see it, and they’re constantly saying that Richie is on the upswing.

“It won’t always be like this,” Eddie tells him one night, echoing what Richie’s therapist keeps telling him, over and over. “It’ll get easier. You’re doing so well.”

Richie usually just lets Eddie comfort him, dissociating or zoning out, staring at the far wall while Eddie tries to drag him back down to reality. He’s less absent-minded than he was before the whole mess, sure, but now he’s trying to relearn and Eddie can tell that Richie is getting _ frustrated. _ His breaking point, tragically, is when they have people over, but not _ people _people, just the other Losers.

Richie’s been struggling with speech lately; the more words he gets back, the harder it gets for him to talk, and his brain damage has been choking up his words. It infuriates him, so he doesn’t talk, and then he forgets he’s not talking and tries again, and the whole thing starts all over. This time, Richie snaps.

“Mother_fucker!” _ he exclaims, after what Eddie thought was one of the more innocuous stammerings of the night. Bill jumps, but Eddie just frowns as Richie says, “God, the fucking Deadlights _ roasted _ my brain, I swear to God, you’d be better off if I _ had _died—”

“Richie,” Eddie interrupts. They’re all looking at Richie, and his whole face falls when he realizes what he’s said. He stands up and nearly falls right back down, hands flying out to balance himself. “Richie, don’t—”

“Don’t what?” Richie says, and Eddie can see the exact moment he loses him to emotion, the moment his face goes red and his eyes well up behind his thick glasses and he’s too far gone to reason with. “Don’t tell the truth? Don’t talk about how fucked up my brain is now and how much I’m being a fucking— a fuck, a fucking.... _ motherfucker!” _

“It’s okay, it’s okay if you don’t remember what you were saying,” Eddie tells him, and Richie shakes his head, looking away, arms folded across his chest as he deflates.

“I’m sorry, I just—” Richie starts to say, then stops, shaking his head and turning, walking straight out of the room. Everyone’s on their feet in seconds, but Eddie waves them off, following after Richie at a jog. Richie’s legs are much longer than his, but when Eddie picks up the pace, he’s able to catch up with him before he gets to their bedroom.

“Eddie, I can’t do this,” Richie says, when Eddie catches his wrist. “Sometimes I don’t— I don’t even know where I am,” he admits, and Eddie’s hands go cold, “Sometimes I think I’m still in Los Angeles, sometimes I’m in the sewer again, and I can’t do this anymore, Eddie, I _ can’t.” _ Eddie’s entire heart sinks, and he panics, grabbing Richie’s face in his.

“You are going to be _ okay,” _ Eddie promises him, desperate. “You’re doing so well, Rich. I’m so, _ so _proud of you and I know they are, too. No bullshit, I swear to you, I wouldn’t lie to you. Not about something like this.” He’d say anything, do anything; he kisses Richie, and Richie kisses him back, curving his spine to bend over Eddie.

“I’m so fucked up,” Richie laughs, humorlessly. “God, I’m so fucked up, Eds. How can you stand it?”

“I love you,” Eddie says. Richie laughs again, but Eddie takes his face between his hands and forces him to make direct eye contact with him. “Richie, I love you. You deserve love. Please, _ please _don’t give up, Richie, Jesus, I don’t know what I’d—”

“Calm down, I’m not going anywhere,” Richie interrupts him, and Eddie kisses him again, tugging him down to his level to do it. When Richie pulls back to look at him again, Eddie puts a hand at the back of his neck and guides him down so he can press his mouth to Richie’s forehead.

“We all love you,” Eddie tells him. Richie makes a noise of protest, but Eddie steamrolls over it with, “No, _ no, _ don’t you make those sounds at me, we _ do. _The sooner you get that through your dumb fucking head, Tozier, the happier we’ll all be, you hear me? Besides, what we’re actually—”

“He’s right,” Beverly says over him, and Richie straightens up to see his friends in the hall with him. Bill comes at them first, wrapping his arms around Richie and trapping Eddie in between them, pinning him back against Richie. Ben’s arms hit him from one side, and Bev’s from the other, and Mike’s right over Richie’s back, ensconcing him in their hold. Richie shakes apart under their hands, laughing a little, crying mostly, trying to calm down.

“We made a promise,” Bill reminds him. Reminds them all, really; he’s got that voice on that he gets when he’s trying to be a leader or something. “We promised we’d never forget each other. We’re not just gonna forget about you, Richie, and we’re not just gonna leave you behind. You got that?” Richie laughs, but before he can answer, Bill says, “I’m serious, Richie. I am. We’re never going to lose you, okay?”

Richie’s quiet for a second, and then he nods, his breath hitching, and he tucks his face down into Eddie’s hair. Eddie gets his arms around Richie’s waist and just holds him, letting him calm down there in his grasp.

“Okay,” Richie finally says. “Alright, _ ugh, _get off of me, you bunch of gays—”

“Goddamnit, Richie—”

“What? Now that we can finally pull the gay card, I’m gonna pull the gay card!” Richie exclaims. Eddie pinches him, and Richie goes back to hugging him, pulling him close enough to press their cheeks together before he buried his face in the crook between Eddie’s neck and shoulder. Eddie holds tight to Richie, hands spread across his back, lets their friends hold them to the Earth, and just basks in them both being _ okay. _

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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